


Something Old, Something New

by PurpleFluffyCat



Series: Horace and Lily, in Three Acts [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Infidelity, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 19:32:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5639347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleFluffyCat/pseuds/PurpleFluffyCat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You liked her, didn't you?" said Harry Potter to Horace Slughorn, "Lily Evans was one of your favourites." </p>
<p><i>Oh, how little those words did justice to all that had happened eighteen years before,</i> thought Horace, sadly...</p>
<p>This story is set on the day of Lily's wedding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Old, Something New

The doors of the Hogsmeade wedding chapel were already closed when Horace arrived there, having procrastinated for so long he was late. He was attired in his finest dress robes - purple velvet brocade, a trim of silver - but he felt stiff and apprehensive, not filled with the largesse that usually flowed from him on such occasions. Another wave of doubt floated through his mind as he felt the sharp invitation press from his inside jacket pocket and it was with a slightly shaking hand that he opened the building's outer door and stepped quietly inside.

As he had supposed, the assembled company were already seated inside. The thick smoked-glass doors between the antechapel and ceremonial chamber were tightly closed, conferring an artificial silence upon the space in which he undecidedly stood. Most of those inside were fidgeting expectantly - but none more so than the dark-haired young groom at the front of the chapel, receiving encouraging pats on the back from his shaggy but elegant best man. On the other side of the aisle the bridal attendants fiddled with the flowers in their hair and gingerly smoothed imaginary creases from their dresses; the wizarding tradition that the bride should arrive alone - and therefore of her own free will - gave them little at that stage to do.

Once again, Horace considered turning tail. There was a convenient seat at the back of the congregation that he could slide into, but perhaps this was a really bad idea after all and he should just make to leave...

Before a decision could be made, however, a familiar voice accosted him from a shadowy alcove. "Horace! You came!"

He jumped, but recovered himself quickly. Here was the girl - the young woman - who was at the centre of both his thoughts and the day's imminent celebrations. Lily Evans walked toward him, looking radiant in her wedding gown. "Of course, I came!" he blustered, "How could I have missed you looking so beautiful, my girl?" Horace smiled, trying to be stoic.

Lily regarded him, then came close; too close.

"I just thought that..."

A long pause, as Horace tried to hang on to his collectedness. So much hung in the air between them; so many things unsaid.

Horace waved a hand in what he hoped was an airy fashion. "Well, here I am. It wouldn't be proper to turn down such a lovely invitation. And besides, I hear that you are having a rather splendid banquet afterwards."

Lily smiled weakly, taking in the finely-dressed man before her. She then searched his face for a long moment, looking increasingly regretful. "I'm so pleased that you're here. I wanted to say... I'm sorry."

Horace shook his head abruptly. "Sorry? No such thing, dear girl!" This time he meant it. "I should be thanking you! A lovely young thing such as yourself having even spent a _moment's_ thought on an old buffer like me?"

Her brow furrowed. "Don't say that. It wasn't like that."

Another pause. "I know," he conceded sadly, then sighed in the following silence.

A well-worn stubborn look crossed Lily's face, and Horace knew then that she was determined to have it out; affection for her Gryffindor mulishness still played at the sides of his thoughts. " _I_ pursued _you,_ Horace, I do remember that," Lily stated, "As soon as I left school I realized I... missed you. You'd always made me feel special, and I'd come to think of you as more than a Professor, as a..."

Horace raised his bushy eyebrows as she trailed off. She must have caught the slight challenge in his eyes and rose to finish her sentence. "As a wizard. As a man. As... my lover."

Horace's heart both leapt and twisted painfully at her words. He was surely too old for all of this; weren't feelings supposed to numb with age?

Slowly, he tried to gather the shards of his better sense as the young woman in the wedding dress gazed becomingly toward him. With overt deliberacy, he said, "You're a jewel, Lily. I feel honoured that you wanted me; wanted me like that."

She seized his sentence, "And I still..."

"Hush dear," Horace said gently. "You've chosen a different path now - as you told me in your letter, and as the current circumstance quite clearly indicates." A gesture to the chapel, to her dress.

Lily swallowed, almost as if trying to bite back tears. "But if you'd wanted... If you'd _really_ wanted to, we could have made it work, no matter what everyone would have said... But then James did want me - he seemed to want me ever so much - when you could take me or leave me, and I thought that you didn't much care and..." she trailed off once more, her words ringing around the little stone chamber.

Horace felt floored; her words at once true and false. "Oh, Lily," he sighed, "My dear, sweet girl. I care for you more than you will probably ever know, and almost certainly more than I should - for your sake as well as for mine. If I were forty years younger, I'd fight tooth and nail for you. But growing up's all about making sensible decisions, what? And young James in there is going to survive much longer than an old soak like me, that's for sure. You're doing the clever thing - you're a clever girl. That's why I liked you in the first place, isn't it? Now you hop along in there and make your vows." He nodded toward the door, trying to be encouraging; trying to do the right thing.

Lily, however, was unmoving and gazed at Horace in that way of hers, that way that moved the elements and made him feel sweet sixteen.

Then all of a sudden she was in his arms once again, the heat of her body against his and the crisp white satin of her wedding robes beneath his fingers. Horace thought he should probably disentangle himself - even Slytherins knew that dallying with a witch on her wedding day was not good form - but all such notions were quickly blown from his mind as she pressed further into his touch, tender breasts against his chest and nimble fingers tangling at the nape of his neck.

Despite himself, Horace's arms encircled her waist and his mouth opened to fill with her demanding kisses. Strands of auburn hair fell across his eyes and as their lips and tongues danced he wanted nothing less than to see them there forever...

-SLAM. The chamber door opened sharply and Horace and Lily broke apart in shock, aroused, panting and horrified that they had been discovered.

Luckily however, no reprimand came their way. "Now, please, Miss!" the bored Ministry official called through the door without bothering to look for whom he was addressing, "We can't wait here all day."

"Yes... ok," she called back, "I'm just sorting out... my hair. Be there in a second."

Lily regained her breath and anxiously pawed at her red locks - far less neatly arranged than they had been. When she had finished, and was angling herself toward the chamber door, Horace couldn't stop himself from tucking a final stray strand tenderly behind her ear.

She grasped his hand as he was moving it away. "Thank you, Horace. For everything."

Horace lifted the delicate fingers chastely to his lips. "Bon chance, ma fille. May you both live long, happy lives."

And with that, the chamber doors were opened, and Horace's lips burnt with Lily's kisses even as her fiery hair bobbed along the aisle toward her future husband.


End file.
